I Have No Idea What's Going On

The next day, I went back into the Tower.

It had been on the way out after wrapping up yesterday's Succession Ceremony.

"Heading back into the Tower now?"

"Yeah."

"Are you thinking of climbing to the higher floors?"

"Probably?"

A look of real regret crossed her face.

"Haa— I'd follow you in a heartbeat if I could, but… I'll climb at my own pace!"

"Okay. Take care of yourself."

We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

After that, I'd originally planned to sleep at a motel.

"I get your situation, but too many kids pretend they're alone and then sneak friends in. I can't do it."

"If somebody reports a kid checking in alone, the cops show up at the motel! And if word gets out the police were here, we lose every last customer!"

"We don't take single occupancy."

Haa. Everyone looks at me through tinted glasses. They're all afraid they'll get caught in the crossfire, so none of them will take me in. I tried a few more places, but it was the same story everywhere.

In the end, the only place ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that would have me was the Tower, wasn't it? Nobody stops you here, and they don't even check ID.

Still, the air in here is pretty nice. Almost feels like living out in the countryside…

That was when the chat started rolling in.

"I can't. I divided it fairly. What's left is Hyeolha Nojo's share."

"Honestly, I don't even remember what happened all that well? And nobody else seemed to have another way, either."

"Anyway, Hyeolha Nojo wouldn't have told me to draw the sword if he'd had another option."

While we were talking, another message popped up.

Hyeolha Nojo had slipped into the room at some point without anyone noticing.

But then, why had he been gone yesterday?

"Why weren't you here yesterday?"

"I sent food through the Heavenly Net, so please eat."

"What is it?"

The instant that message appeared, the other masters flooded the chat.

Huh? Why was everyone so suspicious?

It didn't seem like he'd given me anything bad.

I'd thought a Great Dao Oath was just a fancy way of saying I'm not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lying. Turns out it was more like a contract. The specifics were honestly a little terrifying.

"Alright."

I opened the Heavenly Net to check, and found a single black pill inside.

Just looking at it, it resembled one of those traditional herbal heart-calming pills. The smell, though… how to put it? Refreshing, almost? The kind of thing that didn't seem like it would do anything bad to your body?

It didn't look like there was anything wrong with it, so I swallowed the pill in one gulp.

A rush of cool energy bloomed through my stomach, as if I'd bitten down on a sprig of mint.

"Yes."

"What?"

The world in front of me went white. My breath caught and came in short, ragged pulls. In the middle of the confusion, it felt like scattered jigsaw pieces were finding their places one by one.

In a single instant, everything I had done yesterday came flooding back.

"Hah… hah… A woman's voice. Uggghhh…"

Hyeolha Nojo paid them no mind at all.

In that instant, her voice brushed my ear again.

That sound. Impossible to refuse…?

Huh?

It was just… reaching me. Before, it had felt like a temptation I couldn't escape. Now it just sounded like someone talking to herself.

After that, her voice didn't come again.

So… was it resolved, then?

"I think I'm okay now."

"So… how much time did we buy?"

"How short are we talking?"

"Twenty years? Isn't twenty years a long time?"

No. That wasn't the problem right now.

Even if I'd been controlled by the demonic sword, I was still the one who'd done something wrong, wasn't I? I didn't know how hunters handled this kind of thing, but didn't this mean I needed to go to the police?

It had been sitting in the back of my mind this whole time. Even if people had the wrong idea, I'd still lied and pretended to be an NPC, and then something like this had happened. If I just pretended I didn't know and let it slide, I was only going to end up doing worse things.

"I'm going to the police station first."

"I killed Baek Shin-hoo. I need to go turn myself in and explain the circumstances."

"That's not for me to decide."

The chat kept trying to talk me out of it, but what else was I supposed to do? It felt like I'd fastened the first button wrong from the very start. I'd rather take the punishment for what I did wrong and make a fresh start.

I left the Tower and headed for the police station. In case I got locked up and couldn't eat, I made a detour toward a coffee shop on the way. No telling how this was going to go.

I found a cafe nearby and was just about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to step inside when the television in the restaurant next door caught my eye.

"What?"

What was that supposed to mean? I'd been fighting him yesterday.

"Didn't you say I killed Baek Shin-hoo?"

"Do I look like a cop to you?"

"Long time no see, unnie. You still look exhausted."

"I'm even more exhausted because of you. What the hell was so urgent you kept pestering me like that?"

"It's important for Korea too."

"I don't know how important it is, but if you weren't the guild master of Nebula Guild, this wouldn't have gotten anywhere."

"I know. Thanks for taking on an unreasonable favor. So how did the results come out?"

"Well…"

Yoo Se-ah of Nebula Guild had handed the cup Goat-jjang had used the day before straight to an acquaintance at the Awakening Management Bureau.

Seo Yu-jin, Special Investigator at the Awakening Management Bureau. She handled hunter-related cases, and it was only because of Yoo Se-ah's earnest request that she had put the cup through fingerprint analysis at all—hounding the officer in charge until the job was done on a rush order. If it hadn't been Yoo Se-ah asking, she never would have taken it on.

"You begged so hard I figured it had to be a big deal, so I ran the analysis. The results are… kind of weird."

"Weird how?"

"Let's just say nothing came up?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Seo Yu-jin pulled out her phone and showed her the compiled data.

"That's it. The hotel staff's prints, yours, and one unidentified set. That's all."

"Unidentified…?"

"Whose prints are these supposed to be that you're reacting like that?"

"That can't be right. Are you sure you checked properly?"

Seo Yu-jin bristled.

"Are you kidding me? You hounded me so much I went over it with a fine-tooth comb to make sure nothing got missed. Unless we put in a request to another country, as far as Korea is concerned, it's an unidentified print. That's correct."

Yoo Se-ah fell silent for a moment, thinking.

So she wasn't a hunter? The remaining possibility was that she wasn't Korean. But she'd spoken Korean fluently, and there had been something strangely familiar about her.

Was she really an NPC?

"Did you leave your post at any point during the analysis?"

"No! Who is this person, anyway? Whose cup is this that you're this tense about it?"

Yoo Se-ah hesitated. Should she tell her?

Then again, this had already gone beyond anything the guild could control. The kind of force that had subdued even Baek Shin-hoo. If Nebula went all-out, could they even win? The Awakening Management Bureau was going to find out soon enough anyway.

"That cup belonged to the NPC."

"What?"

Seo Yu-jin stared at her, stunned.

"That NPC who hands out Tteokbap among the hunters?"

"Yeah."

"The Bureau's already plenty interested, you know. She's only in Korea, right?"

"She showed up at the Succession Ceremony yesterday too."

"The NPC came outside the Tower?"

Seo Yu-jin shot to her feet.

"That's what I'm telling you. That's why I was trying to confirm whether she was a hunter."

"Se-ah. Can I report this to my superiors?"

"I don't care. It's not at a level the guild can control, and it's not like we can do anything about it right this second anyway."

Color bloomed across Seo Yu-jin's face.

"Thanks to our Se-ah, I'm gonna crush this performance review! I've been dying to transfer to a cushy post!"

"Handle it however you like. But you're going to have to manage this carefully."

"Why? Manage what?"

"From what I saw, with that level of combat power, most hunters wouldn't even dare pick a fight."

"I heard. That Mad Dog got wrecked, right? Felt damn good."

"On top of that, those Tteokbap alone don't even make sense. I haven't tried the American ones, so I wouldn't know, but from the videos I've seen, hers are far superior."

"That good?"

"And she can come outside."

"So?"

"What are you going to do if another country tries to move her to their Tower?"

"Ah…?"

"We'll have to keep a tight hold on her."

"Yeah… I guess we will."

Seo Yu-jin hurried back to the Bureau.

A high-end restaurant in the heart of Seoul. In a hidden room beneath it, a man and a woman were talking.

"Haa— that's harsh. You call a guy who's finally getting some rest and put him straight to work."

"America's pretty much wrapped up now."

"Korea isn't exactly idle either, you know."

"North Korea and China are right next door."

"Fair enough. Dictatorships are easy—just steer the people at the top…"

"Besides, the agent who was chasing Yoon Chang-min got killed. I didn't have a choice."

"Come on, Korea has plenty of capable people. Why call me, of all people?"

"The matter is the matter. And you speak Korean."

He tried to rattle her, but the woman didn't so much as blink. The man scratched his head and sat up properly.

"So I just need to handle the Yoon Chang-min situation, then?"

"For now. The problem is that Yoon Chang-min took Baek Shin-hoo with him. We still have no way of knowing what they did with an S-rank hunter, or what came of it."

"True. An S-rank hunter as a test subject is a first."

The man sank into the sofa with a groan. The woman simply waited in silence for him to answer.

A peculiar atmosphere hung over the place. More precisely, the silence seemed to melt into the room itself, giving the whole space an uncanny air. Electronic devices packed every inch of the walls, with talismans stuck in the gaps between them. On the desk sat objets that looked like antiques. It was a bizarre chamber, as if technology and superstition had been stirred together in a single pot. Neither of them seemed to find any of it strange, and the conversation rolled on.

"More importantly, isn't this method a bit too extreme?"

"Which method?"

"Using a puppet to impersonate Baek Shin-hoo."

"If we've gone to the trouble of bringing in precious Cyphers, we ought to put them to proper use."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"How is shoving something of unknown origin into a person any different from the Three Corpses Alliance?"

"We only use people who are already vegetables, or who are about to die anyway."

"Tsk. Anyway, you need bait if you want to fish, don't you? We use what we have."

"It's a rare technique even among those Cyphers."

"Anyway, the situation is simple if you lay it out. First: the agent tailing Yoon Chang-min got cleaned up. Second: a new tail was attached immediately after."

"…"

"Third: Yoon Chang-min and Baek Shin-hoo entered the Foundation hospital, then went silent. Last—there was an explosion on the top floor that same day, wasn't there?"

"That's right."

"Could be evidence disposal, but if they still haven't come out, it's one of two things: they got caught in the blast, or they're still in the hospital."

"True."

"If Baek Shin-hoo becomes a Cypher, tracking him will be impossible, so the only options are going after the easier target—Yoon Chang-min—or throwing out bait, right?"

"You could look at it that way."

"Then we go with the simple approach. Have the puppet impersonate Yoon Chang-min and Baek Shin-hoo, and someone will come out, won't they?"

"Someone?"

"Whether it's the Three Corpses Alliance, or Yoon Chang-min, or Baek Shin-hoo—one of them."

"That's probably the best we can do for now."

"If there's no word, we move to the next stage."

The woman nodded and let it go, and the man tossed out another question.

"There's one thing I'm curious about."

"What."

"That girl they call an NPC in Korea. Why did we help her?"

"That's because of the report you sent."

"What about my report?"

"Upstairs is showing interest. Apparently the Three Corpses Alliance is trying to keep the child in check."

"That alone doesn't seem like enough."

"I don't know the details either, but upper management is showing a great deal of interest."

"Are they going to bring her in?"

"Not yet. I don't know why she's pretending to be an NPC, but we need to look into it. She could be a spy."

"Even so, is there a reason for us to step in and help her?"

"When the Three Corpses Alliance marks someone as an enemy, they start by digging into the people around them."

"Right. They come at you overnight like you've joined some cult."

"Her face is already known. If we wait to make our move later, it'll be even harder to clean up, so we're just getting ahead of it."

"What about the people the kid's been associating with?"

"We'll handle them according to the situation too."

"Alright. Anything else?"

The man stood up from the sofa and stretched.

"For now, just handle the Yoon Chang-min and Baek Shin-hoo matter properly."

"Okay."